Party of hope now the party of fear

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This article was published 27/04/2011 (5636 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

His voice shredded from too many stump speeches, his fist balled up in a what appeared to be a permanent fist, Michael Ignatieff made one last appeal to Canadians voters to change course.

“Rise up Canada,” the Liberal leader told several hundred supporters Tuesday night at Terry Duguid’s Winnipeg South campaign office, a fierce energy in his voice. “Now’s the time.” Now is certainly the time for the Liberals to do something. In most opinion polls, Ignatieff’s Liberals are running even with or behind a surging NDP. It is no small coincidence Ignatieff was getting what was probably his last visit to Winnipeg the night before NDP Leader Jack Layton makes a brief stop in the city. It’s Jack, hot on Michael’s heels again.

It is a stunning turn of events for a Liberal party that had such optimism in the first 10 days of the campaign. Now, the Grits are fighting not only to regain their previous levels of support, but likely the continued existence of their party.

Ignatieff implored Liberal faithful at Duguid’s headquarters to knock on doors, make phone calls and warn Canadians the way things are going, Conservative Leader Stephen Harper will get the majority he has so long pursued. The formula for the Liberals seems pretty clear: Get out the vote and make sure they’re scared silly about the prospects of a Harper majority. “You’ve got to lay it on the line,” Ignatieff told his supporters. “If you vote for Mr. Layton and the NDP, you get Stephen Harper. If you vote for the Bloc (Québécois), you’re going to get Stephen Harper.”

Unfortunately for Ignatieff, Canadians might not be all that afraid of a Harper majority. While it’s true the Conservatives remain stalled in the high 30s of popular support in most polls, painfully shy of the threshold for a majority, Harper has been using the M-word since the campaign started and there hasn’t been a stampede out of the Tory camp. No, for Ignatieff’s last-week strategy to make sense, he will have to lure cynical Canadians — especially disenchanted Liberals who sat out the last election — back into the polling stations. Ignatieff needs to find Canadians afraid of Harper and convince them to vote. It’s a long shot, but Elections Canada did announce Monday a record number of Canadians, more than two million in all, voted in advance polls. That’s a 35 per cent higher turnout than 2008 and not a bad development for the Liberals.

How did the Liberals get in this mess? Many will blame Ignatieff and such is the burden for leaders. They are often credited with unwarranted success and unfairly labelled as the cause of profound failures. And yet, Ignatieff has by all accounts exceeded expectations and has run a better campaign than his predecessor, Stéphane Dion. But not only has Ignatieff not been rewarded for this achievement, he’s lost ground.

This is especially confounding when you think the Conservatives have lurched from campaign controversy to controversy, providing any good leader of a good party with more than enough leverage with voters. But none of it has stuck to the Tories. Not the fraud-convicted PMO confidant, nor the understated costs of F-35 fighter jets, nor the damning and leaked report from the auditor general, nor allegations of influence-peddling against the prime minister’s chief communicator.

Perhaps Ignatieff’s legendary aloofness, his severe expression and his ivory-tower resumé made him the wrong leader for this election. Perhaps his political instincts were not sophisticated enough to take better advantage of all the Tory gaffes. Perhaps.

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It is more likely Ignatieff’s fate will prove that, in some elections, no leader is capable of saving a party with a damaged brand. In the post-Adscam era, the Liberals no longer carry the allure or gravitas they once did in Ontario or among immigrant voters across the country.

They can no longer count on the split of right-of-centre voters to give them an easy road to victory. It is true Ignatieff does not have the movie-star charisma of Trudeau or the folksy charm of Chrétien. However, one can only wonder if either of those two leaders would be able to save the Liberals in this election.

The ultimate irony is that the Liberals started this election as the “party of hope,” in stark contrast to what Ignatieff called the Tory “campaign of fear.” And now, with their prospects so dim, it appears fear is the only thing that will save the Liberals.

dan.lett@freepress.mb.ca

Please join Dan Lett at the Free Press News Café (237 McDermot Ave.) today to talk polls and pollsters with Chris Adams of Probe Research, Andrea Rounce from the University of Manitoba and former Liberal cabinet minister Reg Alcock.

Dan Lett
Columnist

Dan Lett is a columnist for the Free Press, providing opinion and commentary on politics in Winnipeg and beyond. Born and raised in Toronto, Dan joined the Free Press in 1986.  Read more about Dan.

Dan’s columns are built on facts and reactions, but offer his personal views through arguments and analysis. The Free Press’ editing team reviews Dan’s columns before they are posted online or published in print — part of the our tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.